The present disclosure relates generally to information handling systems, and more particularly to detection of elephant flows in networks.
As the value and use of information continues to increase, individuals and businesses seek additional ways to process and store information. One option is an information handling system (IHS). An IHS generally processes, compiles, stores, and/or communicates information or data for business, personal, or other purposes. Because technology and information handling needs and requirements may vary between different applications, IHSs may also vary regarding what information is handled, how the information is handled, how much information is processed, stored, or communicated, and how quickly and efficiently the information may be processed, stored, or communicated. The variations in IHSs allow for IHSs to be general or configured for a specific user or specific use such as financial transaction processing, airline reservations, enterprise data storage, or global communications. In addition, IHSs may include a variety of hardware and software components that may be configured to process, store, and communicate information and may include one or more computer systems, data storage systems, and networking systems.
Additionally, some embodiments of information handling systems include non-transient, tangible machine-readable media that include executable code that when run by one or more processors, may cause the one or more processors to perform the steps of methods described herein. Some common forms of machine readable media include, for example, floppy disk, flexible disk, hard disk, magnetic tape, any other magnetic medium, CD-ROM, any other optical medium, punch cards, paper tape, any other physical medium with patterns of holes, RAM, PROM, EPROM, FLASH-EPROM, any other memory chip or cartridge, and/or any other medium from which a processor or computer is adapted to read.
Computer networks form the interconnection fabric that enables reliable and rapid communications between computer systems and data processors that are in both close proximity to each other and at distant locations. These networks create a vast spider web of intranets and internets for handling all types of communication and information. Making all of this possible is a vast array of network switching products that make forwarding decisions in order to deliver packets of information from a source system or first network node to a destination system or second network node. Due to the size, complexity, and dynamic nature of these networks, sophisticated network switching products are often required to continuously make forwarding decisions and to determine the best routes and/or ways to forward network traffic in a network. As the nodes in the network place changing demands on the network switching products and the network, by requesting the forwarding of different types of network of varying sizes, it may be advantageous for the network switching products to adjust the ways that different packets of network traffic are handled. For example, the network switching products may be tasked with forwarding a large quantity or bandwidth of related data between two nodes for an extended period of time. Data transfers with these characteristics are sometimes referred to as elephant flows. Because of the amount of data in the elephant flow and the amount of time it takes to forward the data, it may be advantageous to adjust the forwarding strategy used by one or more of the network switching devices that are forwarding the network traffic associated with the elephant flow. However, a precursor to adjusting the forwarding strategy to adapt to an elephant flow is the detection of the existence of the elephant flow.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide improved systems and methods for detecting elephant flows.